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Msgr. Timothy Senior named Auxiliary Bishop for Archdiocese of Philadelphia

By CHRISTIE L. CHICOINECS&T STAFF WRITER

PHILADELPHIA – Pope Benedict XVI has named Msgr. Timothy C. Senior, 49, currently the Archdiocese’s Vicar for Clergy, as an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia.

Cardinal Justin Rigali announced the appointment a 10 a.m. press conference Monday, June 8 at the Archdiocesan Office Center.

Bishop-elect Senior will be ordained to the episcopacy at 2 p.m. Friday, July 31 at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.

“I am humbled but filled with great joy and gratitude this day on the occasion of the announcement that Pope Benedict XVI has named me Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia,” Bishop-elect Senior said in his remarks at the press conference.

“My heart is filled with gratitude first to Almighty God for the gift of life and for the gift of my Roman Catholic faith. I treasure the gift of faith and the priceless gift of friendship with Jesus Christ who has called me to share in His Sacred Priesthood.

“I am grateful to Pope Benedict XVI for the call to the episcopacy,” Bishop-elect Senior continued. “I assure him of my unwavering loyalty, obedience and fidelity to the Magisterium.”

Bishop-elect Senior also thanked Cardinal Rigali for his confidence in him and for the fraternal love and support that he has given to him and to all the priests of the Archdiocese.

“I love being a priest,” Bishop-elect Senior continued. “As a priest, I have encountered the abiding and irresistible love of God drawing me ever more deeply into relationship with Him.”

The third of Elise [nee Rothwell] and the late James Harwood Senior’s three children, Bishop-elect Senior graduated form St. Rose of Lima School in North Wales in 1973 and Lansdale Catholic High School in 1977.

After completing studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, he was ordained a priest for the Philadelphia Archdiocese May 18, 1985, by Cardinal John Krol at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul. He was named a monsignor by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

Bishop-elect Senior has served as Vicar for Clergy since 2004.

From 1997 to 2004, he was the archdiocesan Secretary for Catholic Human Services, under which Catholic Health Care Services and Catholic Social Services operate. From 1992 to 1997, he was deputy secretary of Catholic Human Services.

For the past 14 years, Bishop-elect Senior has served as chaplain and as a priest in residence at spanine Providence Village in Springfield, Delaware County, a residential facility for developmentally disabled adult women which operates under Catholic Social Services.

Assignments have also included parochial vicar of Assumption B.V.M. Parish in Feasterville, faculty of Archbishop Kennedy High School and student priest at Boston College.

Assignments in weekend ministry have included St. Kevin Parish in Springfield, St. Thomas the Apostle in Chester Heights and, for the last nine years, at St. John Chrysostom in Wallingford.

The Cardinal said that throughout his tenure as Archbishop of Philadelphia, he has seen Msgr. Senior’s devotion not only for his brother priests, but to all the faithful of the entire Archdiocese. “He is an exemplary priest with a great love for the Church,” the Cardinal said.

“I express my sincere gratitude to him for his generous response and willingness to serve as we begin our new collaboration, together with the other auxiliary bishops, in serving God’s people, in the work of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.”

Read more about Bishop-elect Senior in the June 11 issue of The Catholic Standard & Times.

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